Security forces killed five Kurdish guerrillas today in southeast Turkey in a clash in which two soldiers also died, security sources said.
They said Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels launched an attack overnight on a military command post in the Daglica district of Hakkari province, near the borders with Iraq and Iran. The fighting continued until morning.
One soldier was also injured in the firefight. Military operations against the militants in the area were continuing.
Clashes between the PKK and Turkey's military have intensified since the spring thaw in the mountainous southeast.
The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 with the aim of creating a Kurdish homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeast of the country.
The intensity of the conflict has eased since the group's leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured and jailed in 1999.
The Daglica military installation, near where the latest clash occurred, was the scene of a PKK attack in October 2007 when 12 soldiers were killed, 16 injured and eight kidnapped.
Reuters